This report describes the instruction, assessment, and staff development of the Multicultural Reading and Thinking (McRAT) program and summarizes the results of a one-year study conducted in 1989-90. (McRAT is a nationally recognized staff development program designed to help teachers infuse higher order thinking skills and multicultural concepts into the existing curriculum.) The report (1) outlines the 4 kinds of reasoning--analysis, comparison, inference/interpretation, and evaluation--that students can use in academic subjects; (2) discusses various types of writing assessment; (3) describes the staff development program offered by McRAT; and (4) offers the (positive) results of a study designed to gain information on the effectiveness of the McRat instructional approach. Ten figures and three tables of data are included.(PRA)